DESCRIPTION: This grant application requests support for the EPITHELIAL DIFFERENTIATION AND KERATINIZATION Gordon Research Conference to be held July 8-13, 2001 at the Tilton School, N.H. Funds are requested to support registration, lodging, and travel expenses of the invited speakers and chairpersons. Partial support is also requested for poster presenters selected to give short platform talks, and to assist several qualified foreign scientists who otherwise could not attend. Applicants will be accepted based on the quality of their research in areas related to this conference, their ability to contribute to the discussion, and the likelihood that their research productivity and creativity will be enhanced by participation. This will be the 12th Gordon Conference on Epithelial Differentiation and Keratinization, which has been held every other year since 1979. The conference has attracted and helped to engage scientists from many disciplines to focus on basic and clinically-applied research in epidermal biology. Progress has been made in understanding these important tissues not only as models for investigating many questions of general scientific interest in cell and molecular biology, development, and genetics, but also for exploring the relation of epithelial biology to our understanding of genetic disorders of epithelial tissues. The 2001 program includes topics of traditional interest to this conference and new ones that reflect the continuing intersection of new scientific fields with epidermal and epithelial biology. The sessions represented by 36 speakers and chairpersons are as follows: (1) Epithelial stem cells, (2) Epithelial polarity, (3) Signal transduction pathways in epithelia, (4) Adhesion, Wnts, Shh and epithelial development, (5) Pathogens, epithelia and cancer, (6) Epithelial adhesion, proliferation and differentiation, and (7) Epithelial architecture